The Marjah offensive was supposed to demonstrate that victory is still
possible in Afghanistan. Instead it has revealed a counterinsurgency
campaign in crisis.
The Marjah offensive was supposed to demonstrate that victory is still
possible in Afghanistan. Instead it has revealed a counterinsurgency
campaign in crisis.
Will America’s new tribal strategy in Afghanistan bring stability, or is it building 'Million Dollar Tribal Militias' that will further undermine a weak Afghan state?
Afghanistan's most notorious warlord is back - at the invitation of the president. Karzai hails his warlord allies as national heroes, but what does their return mean for Afghan Democracy?
Check out Big Noise Film's co-founder Ståle Sandberg's films from Cuba and Colombia.
Habana Libre: a one-hour documentary about a nation's search for identity through the eyes of youth stranded in the middle of a national economic crisis.
Lucha: a short film about the student struggle for human rights in Colombia.
Sandberg co-directed and co-produced Zapatista before setting up a new base of operations in Norway, where he continues to produce radical films.
As it stands now, there is only one remaining legal case against Blackwater in the United States - a lawsuit brought by Mohammed Kinani, father of the youngest victim of the Nisur Square shootings. His nine year old son, Ali was shot in the head and killed by Blackwater forces.
Ali’s father may well be the one man now standing between Blackwater and total impunity for the Nisour Square massacre.
As Latinos grow into America's largest minority, the community is being targeted by the US military as a new and steady source of recruits. Entering into the lowest and most dangerous ranks, Latinos have been disproportionately killed in American's latest wars.
From Aryan skinhead gatherings in the middle of the Arizona desert to the anti-immigrant militias patrolling the US-Mexican border, from the white-supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens in Mississippi to the right wing of the "Tea Party Movement", Big Noise takes an inside look at the resurgence of white nationalism in America.
Originally aired on Al Jazeera English. Available on Dispatches Vol.6
Big Noise teams up with investigative journalist Greg Palast, travelling to Liberia to uncover a scam by American debt speculators to take millions from one of the poorest countries on the planet.
But when we showed up to ask them about it at their office in New York, it seemed to have. . . disappeared. . .
It's 2009 in Baghdad, and the walls keep going up. As the American occupation enters its 7th year, Iraq remains in ruins with over 1 million dead and 4 to 6 million refugees that have not begun to return home. Baghdad, a cosmopolitan center for thousands of years, has become a city of walled ghettos. What passes for peace in Iraq today is an exhausted truce in a terrible sectarian conflict.
But how did the occupation turn into this, and what went wrong?
Originally aired on Al Jazeera English. Will be Available on Dispatches Vol.5
5 years into the war in Iraq, there is no end in sight. 200 US soldiers meet outside of Washington D.C., sharing first-hand accounts of the war on-the-ground and of growing GI resistance.
After four years of bloody insurgency in Iraq, the course of the war changed abruptly when America formed an alliance with a confederation of Sunni militias known as the Awakening movement.
But is the US just re-empowering the same tribal elite Saddam used to run the country? And will it lead to long-term stability?
Originally aired on Al Jazeera English. Available on Dispatches Vol.4
Moqtada al Sadr and his militia, the Mehdi Army, have been America's most intractable opponents in Iraq. But after recent attacks launched by the US and Iraqi military against Sadr strongholds, cease-fires were negotiated and the Mehdi Army melted away from the streets.
Has the Mehdi Army finally been defeated, and is this the end of the armed Shiite resistance to the occupation?
Originally aired on Al Jazeera English. Available on Big Noise Dispatches Vol.4
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been detained by the US, one and a half million Iraqis have had an immediate family-member detained, almost every Iraqi knows someone who has been through the US detention system.
Few American institutions affect the lives of ordinary Iraqis more directly and profoundly than the US detention system. But once Iraqis are swept up in the system, there is no clear way out.
Katrina was called the worst natural disaster in America in 100 years.
. . but the hundreds who died here were not killed by the storm - they
were left for days to drown as flood waters rose around them.
And today, the storm isn't what's keeping most of the city's former residents from returning home.
In March 2008 parliamentary elections were held in Iran. Big Noise travelled there to show a side of Iranian politics rarely seen
in the Western media. We meet everyday
people of Iran as well as the candidates running for Parliament as they
debate and discuss the relevance of these elections, their economic
conditions and the international pressures on their nation.
Elections Under Threat offers a unique glimpse into the political dynamics of the
struggles for participation and democracy in a nation facing increasing
economic and military threats from the United States.
While the economy unravels and the gap widens between rich and poor, Homeless Power looks at the rise of a new poor people's movement in America.
A homeless mother when she was in her teens, Cheri Honkala is the founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, an organization dedicated to empowering the poor and homeless in Philadelphia. Cheri argues that the poor are being made invisible by the urban redevelopment programs of the last 20 years. But the prosperity of shiny new urban centers is an illusion that simply forceshunger and homelessness out of site.
With the erosion of US manufacturing jobs, Americans are filing for bankruptcy in record numbers and credit card debt is soaring - leaving more workers just a paycheck away from homelessness.
"In this country there is no safety net and there is no security. You can be ok for one minute and the next day you can be living out on the street and nobody will give a damn about you," Cheri says.
Homeless Hero is the story of a true American rebel.
Big Noise teams up with investigative journalist Greg Palast, travelling into Ecuador's Amazon rainforest to take a look at the biggest environmental case in history.
US Oil giant Chevron-Texaco versus the Cofan Indians.
The US military's progress report on Iraq is in and it's mostly bad news. But there is one unexpected success story: in the heartland of the Sunni Insurgency, a group of tribes has joined with the Americans to fight Al Qaeda. The Americans report that attacks on US forces have dropped dramatically and claim that life is beginning to return to normal.
The leader and symbol of this movement that the Americans claim is rapidly securing Anbar province is a sheik named Sattar Abu Risha.But is Abu Risha all he claims to be?
This piece originally aired on Al Jazeera English with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
COIN's Last Stand - Enduring Presence - Yo Soy El Army - Million Dollar Militia - Entrapped
Blackwater's Youngest Victim - White Power USA - Vulture Funds Attack Liberia - East St. Louis
Return of the Warlords - Curveball - Broke Down In Motor City - The Continuing Occupation
Moqtada al Sadr and the Mehdi Army - Sunnu Re-awakening - US Detention System in Iraq - Democratic and Republican Conventions 2008 - Vote Suppression
Battle for Basra - New Orleans: Man-made Disaster -Iran:Elections Under Threat- Chevron/Texaco in Ecuador's Rainforest
Sunni Militias in Iraq - Jena, Louisiana - Homeless Power - Vulture Funds
Hugo Chavez - Subcomandante Marcos - The War in Lebanon - Fraud in the Mexican Elections - World Bank Famine in Niger - Vulture Funds - and more
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As the gulf is declared "safe," scientists look deep in the sea for evidence of lasting damage.
Will America’s new tribal strategy in Afghanistan bring stability, or is it building 'Million Dollar Tribal Militias' that will further undermine a weak Afghan state? 
Afghanistan's most notorious warlord is back - at the invitation of the president. Karzai hails his warlord allies as national heroes, but what does their return mean for Afghan Democracy?
As it stands now, there is only one remaining legal case against Blackwater in the United States - a lawsuit brought by Mohammed Kinani, father of the youngest victim of the Nisur Square shootings. His nine year old son, Ali was shot in the head and killed by Blackwater forces.
From Aryan skinhead gatherings in the middle of the Arizona desert to the anti-immigrant militias patrolling the US-Mexican border, from the white-supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens in Mississippi to the right wing of the "Tea Party Movement", Big Noise takes an inside look at the resurgence of white nationalism in America.
5 years into the war in Iraq, there is no end in sight. 200 US soldiers meet outside of Washington D.C., sharing first-hand accounts of the war on-the-ground and of growing GI resistance.
After four years of bloody insurgency in Iraq, the course of the war changed abruptly when America formed an alliance with a confederation of Sunni militias known as the Awakening movement.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been detained by the US, one and a half million Iraqis have had an immediate family-member detained, almost every Iraqi knows someone who has been through the US detention system. 
Katrina was called the worst natural disaster in America in 100 years.
. . but the hundreds who died here were not killed by the storm - they
were left for days to drown as flood waters rose around them.
